#voltron 8

Now concerning people’s three biggest yelling points:

Allura giving up her life is something she came to terms with and understood what was necessary to save realities. She’s always been someone who’s cared about others and her story line has been one of becoming a person who needs to make hard decisions, who can empathize with people who are different than her, to trust but remain practical. In short, to be a leader, a guardian to her people. In the first episode on her date with Lance, he brings her to his family and she is conflicted because she wants a family. But she wants HER family and it would have never happened had she not taken this. She could have found a happiness on Earth but there would always be that part of her that yearns for the home she’d grown up in. She couldn’t have Altea but she could have her Father, she could have a group of people who understand.

Lance has always lacked confidence. He feigns it to try and gain others’ favor and his evolution has been one of self realization: self action to do what makes him happy. Yes, he wanted to be a pilot, a fighter with accolades, with prestige, and with valor. But looking at this and his issues of self doubt and self worth in the shows, he wants this for the recognition, as a way to make himself important in the eyes of others without realizing that people love him for who he is, not what he is. Yes, he could have found piloting a thing that he likes, but he’s achieved that dream, as a Paladin of Voltron, constantly on the front for years, risking his life and saving the lives of trillions of living things in the end. He’s always been good with animals, he understands them. He works with Kaltenecker and finds a peace with it. To farm, to bring life from the soil, to support people and care for them, this brings him peace too, as well as spreads the message of the woman he still clearly loves. He can let himself live a simple and peaceful life because he is content with himself, who he is.

As for Shiro, the Voltron writers, I believe, crafted a man who did one thing better than anyone else in that world could: do the impossible and fight against the odds. He was abducted, enslaved, forced into gladiatorial combat, escaped, crashed, and went back into space again. He joined a war as the leader of the opposing side, he fought and had his life force ripped from his body and thrown into an abyss where he kept himself sane and together until he could be returned to a physical body. He’s survived things alone that the Paladins hardly survived together. He’s a warrior, and he’s a very tired man. The character of Shiro was one without a predictable path initially, as comparing the original series to the Netflix one, he doesn’t have much convergence. But the Voltron writers took this divergence and turned it into a story of a man who continues to get up over and over again, who continues to suffer unjustly, just as many people in reality do, for the simple sake of being able to put down his weapon and never having to reach for it again, a lasting peace where he can leave the battlefield and indulge himself in a life a stability and certainty.

The fact that Shiro is, and always has been (in the Netflix adaptation) gay/queer is, and I can’t believe that I HAVE to say this but, not essential to the plot and therefore it would not make sense for him to discuss this. There could have been places that this MAY have worked, when he found out Adam died he could have talked to Allura since they’ve both lost people without being able to give a proper goodbye (Adam and Shiro arguing before Shiro went to space and Lotor loosing his mind and bending back to his evil plan), he could have talked to Keith about accepting himself as a queer man just as Keith has to accept himself as Galra, we could have had seen Shiro’s husband to be comfort him instead of Veronica when the Atlas went down, to have a direct one on one interaction, But this is not how things were done and so watchers either must accept it or stop watching as watchers always have.

The thing about Shiro being gay and his gayness not brought up in the context of a show about intergalactic war in a way makes me strangely happy inside, like it was more appropriate to the tone. Not every gay person is going to go about announcing, talking about, “being” gay to everyone and everything they come in contact with. Shiro is a serious man, not that gays can’t be serious, but he’s serious in a way that he blocks out everything and anything that isn’t vital to what he has to do before him.

Would it have been nice to see it, to hear the words come out of his mouth?

Yes?

Am I upset that in a children’s show about intergalatic war, genocide, rebirth, hope, and big ass fucking  robots didn’t make him state this explicitly?

Not really, no. I’m pretty okay with how things are. I saw a grown man who played a vital role in the show have a marriage to another man, and in clear animation kiss him. And all this wasn’t some sort of joke but a serious and happy moment for all the characters.

What’s more, Shiro is someone who found joy and fulfillment as a pilot, a commander, and a leader. He isn’t defined and characterized solely by his queerness, but it is simply given to be a part of him. A part that was always intended for him before the reveal. There was no build up to the “Adam Event”, it was plainly stated. He isn’t pursuing others in the show and others do not pursue him. While (note) this may be my own personal opinion, but a character does not need to be in a relationship, explicit or otherwise, for them to be considered queer representation. It was given to us that he is queer and if he never was shown to get in another relationship again I would have been just as happy about it.

Point is, there is no way for them to have made everyone happy. Make him a very out and talk about it gay man and people would complain about it being not right for the tone or stereotyping, make it subtle and people would denounce it for not being overt representation, make it a big plot point and people complain that it’s turning the story into dramatic romance. Do what they did and call it “fake bandage representation” or queerbaiting.

I know, you know, we all know reasonably there isn’t a way to please everyone. Nothing is perfect, but for me to see two adult men, animated to look like adult men, realistic to a point (more realistic, humanistic than Ruby and Sapphire, Bubblegum and Marciline{sp?} and other western animated shows) to be happy and have an overt kiss was a shock in that I never expected it. We are breaking the walls on Queer representation in animated western media, but many of these breakthroughs are with wlw characters which our society has made generally more acceptable because we see female sexuality not only as something we can control but also more mutable (and fetishized) where as we keep men in such a strict box of sexual expectation and gender performance.

Shiro is a strong and “masculine” male lead with both physical, emotional, and mental strength, leadership skills, self-assured-ness, and very decisive. But he’s also empathetic, understanding, gentle, a listener, a team player, and a gay man who doesn’t seek relationships. He follows his dreams: one was to go to space, and then one to leave the battle. He got both of these and he got his happily ever after, not because he married, because a happily ever after is not marriage and domestic bliss, because he returned to earth and has made a life that makes him boundlessly happy.